


Many Rivers to Cross

by Jeremyjohnirons



Category: Ravenous (1999)
Genre: Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Mental Anguish, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:35:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27054265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeremyjohnirons/pseuds/Jeremyjohnirons
Summary: In spite of himself, Boyd survives. Unfortunately, so does Ives.
Relationships: John Boyd/Ives
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19





	Many Rivers to Cross

**Author's Note:**

> like so many others who are fans of ravenous, i had to try my hand at a fix-it fic for these two because as terrible as they are and as beautiful as that ending is, you Know i want them to survive happily ever after
> 
> this fic makes reference to a deleted scene with lindus in boyd's nightmare scene because lindus is the best character! 
> 
> i hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!

Boyd wakes in his bed, his body a constellation of wounds, mementos of a lost battle. The memory of Hart’s slit throat, blood spattered across a windowpane; a bloody cross smeared across a fire; a knife stuck in his back; a bear-trap clicking shut. He had died. Boyd’s mind struggles to settle on his present reality: the cold of an early spring night, the wooden table beside him, the straw of his mattress poking into his back, the crucifix above him. He should be dead.

A flicker of firelight shines through the cracks in the old boards of his door, and Boyd realizes with a start that he’s not alone. But then, he doesn’t know why he expected to be. Boyd closes his eyes to flashes of blood and metal, Ives’ face painted red. He opens his eyes. 

Slauson had been on his way to the fort, he remembers. It must be him then, or if not him, then Lindus, tending diligently to the fire and waiting for Boyd to wake. They would have found him, trapped in that gruesome embrace with Ives, and upon finding him miraculously alive, removed him from the trap. 

_But with two men dead and two others missing, you would be in shackles for questioning_ , his mind supplies. 

_Perhaps it’s Ives_ , it says. 

No. It couldn’t be. Even if he himself had survived, Ives is surely dead. He killed him and heard him draw his last breath. Boyd had tricked him, trapped him in a ring of iron, laid out in a halo of crimson. 

_Ives is dead_ , thinks Boyd. Repeats it soundlessly until he can bring himself to believe it. 

Though, even in death, his words still swirl prettily through Boyd’s mind. Fragments of conversation flutter towards realization: the offer of life, of paradise, should he have accepted it. 

_Would he accept it now?_

Pushing away Ives, leaving the unspoken question unanswered, Boyd heaves a deep breath of exertion, his knuckles white where they clutch the mattress, as he moves to rise. He grits his teeth against his injuries as he swings his legs over the side of his bed, the wood of its frame creaking loudly. The noise is deafening in the nighttime silence of the fort. He pauses, straining to hear footsteps approaching his door. Surely Lindus would hear the noise and come to check.

When the expected footsteps don’t arrive, Boyd stands. The boards underneath his feet are cold with the winter air that persistently creeps through the slats of the walls, and the shock of it shoots through Boyd as he moves barefoot across the floor, his muscles protesting the movement, his mind protesting discovery.

But he is hungry, his stomach hollow and aching, and his room is cold, and his mind restless. 

He moves forward. 

***

In the kitchen, in front of the fire, is Ives.

Bright and alive, he stands clad in shirtsleeves stained with blood, a cigar dangling carelessly from his lips, a cleaver in hand and his butcher’s work laid out before him.

His dark eyes dart up, ever watchful, observing Boyd’s slow entrance. He lays down his cleaver, a sign of peace, and inhales a lungful of smoke before removing the cigar from his mouth.

“Ah. You’re awake. Good.” 

Boyd’s vision swims in and out of focus, the warmth from the fire now unbearable, and he tastes Ives’ blood still in his mouth - his lips at Ives’ neck, the teeth of the bear trap lodged in his back and pressing him ever closer. Rivulets of blood fall from the now unrecognizable body in front of Ives down the sides of the table and Boyd feels their movement, the stream creating an unholy passage from Ives to Boyd. He envisions himself falling to his knees to lap the blood, the metallic liquid coursing through his veins, healing his sore mind, his still open wounds. The sound of Ives’ last breath rattles through him, the sound of a winter storm. The smell of salt and iron is thick in the air, suffocating him. Ives is watching him now as they did then, his black eyes lifeless as Boyd unconsciously moved closer, opening his mouth and accepting all Ives had to offer. 

Ives exhales a ribbon of smoke and waits for Boyd. The way he stands there, golden-hued and lazy, resplendent with vitality, should have been impossible. Boyd can feel his jaw working, protestations and fury ready to flow forth but stuck behind the cage of his teeth, bone grinding on bone. His hands tense, itching to find Ives’ throat, to tear at his flesh, to succeed where they had failed before. He’s frozen, shaking with impotent rage and fear, when Ives breaks the silence. 

He flashes a quick grin, teasing as always, and gestures towards the meat in front of him. “Hungry?” He asks.

“How?” Boyd hears himself rasp.

“Pardon?”

“How– How did you survive?”

The room stills as Ives ponders his answer, shrugging his shoulders with a raise of his eyebrows, playing at confusion. It's a game. It always was, Boyd realizes. Ives wants him to guess at the answers, draw him out with faulty, hopeful conclusions. But Boyd is better at this game, this game of waiting and silence. So it is impatience that draws Ives out instead, and he lets out a huff of petulance. 

“You left me a gift, Captain.” When this provokes no response from Boyd, Ives continues, “The General’s aide– you left him half dead in front of me. I almost believe you meant him for me to have, Boyd,” he smiles, “Well, I finished him off. A mercy, really, and when I was strong enough I came in to find Slauson himself, dead on the floor.” 

Boyd had killed Lindus. 

Boyd had killed Slauson. 

They had found him, stuck in his gruesome embrace with Ives, and upon finding him miraculously alive, removed him from the trap, and Boyd had killed them. His body numbs, his mind stills, his anger focuses on Ives.

“You were dead,” he grits out. 

“No,” Ives draws out the vowel, smirking, “I was nearly dead, yes, but not quite.” 

“You died,” Boyd insists, his voice rising. 

“Death can be quite a slow process.” 

Ives takes a last drag on his cigar before casting it into the fire. Smoke from Ives’ mouth blooms between them, and Boyd feels his anger falter, stumbling away before he can catch it, and he breaks eye contact– an admission of defeat. A quiet laugh joins in with the crackles of the fire, “You know, I was very impressed with you, dragging us into that trap. Had we been there any longer, we would both surely be dead.” 

“I heard you die.” 

“Ah. Yes, I wanted you to believe it, but– forgive me for lying, Boyd– I was not quite dead yet. As I said, it’s a slow process. Slower still when you have lives other than your own in your veins, waiting to perish.” 

Ives pauses, regards Boyd with a look of amused curiosity, “I suppose I wanted to see what you would do. I had given you the choice before, to live or die, and you chose life. Despite what your waking self might protest, you can be very insistent on living, given the right circumstances. I wondered whether you would make the same choice again.”

Boyd is silent, his eyes fixed on the floor. 

“Well! You proved my hypothesis correct, and chose to live. It’s understandable, after all, and was hugely beneficial to me, and so I thank you, Boyd. Of course, had you not chosen correctly, I would have eaten you. I’m not such a slave to curiosity to let a good meal go to waste. But nevertheless, here we both are.” 

As Ives finishes speaking, Boyd suddenly notices his closeness. A bowl of stew is pushed into his hands, a soft encouragement is given to eat, and Boyd feels himself move, his feet leading him back to his room and away from Ives.

***

Once alone again, he stumbles to sit on the floor, his back pressed against his bed, a position familiar to him after the death of Cleaves. Instead of shackles around his wrists and the pacing of Knox outside his door, he has Ives humming from the kitchen, the sound of the cleaver thudding wetly against flesh and wood, and Knox sits before him.

The stew pulses with its past life, throbbing alongside Boyd's heartbeat, the smell of whiskey, the last memory of the man in the bowl, sour in the air. Hunger pleads with Boyd, forcing his eyes back and back to the stew, to the tendrils of steam rising from it, a spot of warmth in a cold room. He knew the meat, he had tasted it the night before, he had spoken with it the day before that. It was red, warm, inviting, but if he gave in now, he would never stop. Ives would win. _But Ives had already won_ , his hunger reasoned with him. _He won the minute you tasted his blood, let his strength merge with your own. You left him Lindus, you wanted him to live_ , it says, pulling him closer to the bowl, lifting his hand to the spoon. 

Boyd is powerless. His hand, now an agent unfamiliar to him, raises the spoon to his lips, and the smell is no longer sour. The meat still pulses, but it pulses with life, with opportunities, with denied possibilities. It smells sweet. The fragrance surrounds and intoxicates Boyd, and his mouth waters for it. 

Knox held a surprising reserve of strength inside himself, walled in by alcohol, but waiting. Waiting for someone to take hold of it and know how to use it. They had all been like that at Fort Spencer. Men without use, cut off from their lives, waiting for a purpose. Ives had given that to them, had taken what was good and excised the bad. The last dregs of the stew find their way down Boyd’s throat as he thinks of Ives, of Knox, of mountains and caves, of strength and weakness. 

His hunger sated, the pieces of Boyd’s consciousness, the cowardice and anger, the shame and revulsion, knit themselves back together. He shudders and throws the empty bowl, watching it skitter across the floor, its contents evacuated and its purpose realized.

The rest of the night passes fitfully. Boyd stays slumped on the floor, dozing in fits and starts, waiting for the door to open. He half expects to see Hart come through it, jolly and bloodstained, with Ives dragging another victim through the hall. Neither Ives nor Hart make an appearance though, to both his relief and disappointment. 

Lindus appears once to replay a previous conversation, to ask about his nightmares: _You can talk to us, Captain._ Boyd chokes out a strangled cry, something between a laugh and a sob. He watches helplessly, an apology stuck in his throat, as Lindus slumps forward, blood spilling from his neck, his leg twisting beneath him as the bones bend and break. Lindus vanishes to be replaced by a mangled Slauson, his body reduced to a pulpy mess of meat but his eyes fixed on Boyd, sharp and suspicious in death as in life. He breathes out a whisper of reproach as Boyd shakes himself awake to the sounds of the wind whistling past the panes of his windows. 

Boyd squeezes his eyes shut, his nails digging crescents into his palms, willing himself to focus on the familiar creaks and groans of Fort Spencer, to focus on the familiar bed at his back, the hard floor beneath him, and forces his mind away from spectres as he waits for dawn to break.

***

Ives is conspicuously absent the next morning as Boyd ventures out of his room. He’s clothed again in his greatcoat, the material stiff with rebellion. There was a time when Boyd had felt pride in the figure he cut in this coat, a soldier ready to fight for his country, ready for glory, but glory was ill-gained, and the coat no longer seems to fit like it once did. 

The kitchen stretches out in front of him, the fire glimmering with stubborn embers and the cutting block thankfully empty again. Boyd picks his way around the clutter of the room, ignoring each jolt of guilt as the items call out for their previous owners, and makes his way outside where he can breathe again. 

Boyd shivers in the crisp morning air and pulls his coat in on himself. He notices the’ abandoned horses staked in the yard and he imagines taking one now and running. He could make it to San Miguel to confess his and Ives’ crimes, let the forces there come to apprehend them both. He turns from the horses and moves on. 

Chickens patter across the yard, hopeful in their search for food, and scatter as Boyd walks by, heading towards the laundry. As he waits for Ives to appear, he takes comfort in the ritual of undressing and washing. His blood, along with Slauson, Lindus, and Ives’ is all cleared away, the scars of the past week faded or fading. He finds a shirt and pants, unknown to him, possibly belonging to Reich, and puts them on. He decides to keep his own coat, a reminder of himself in case he forgets. 

Later, Boyd finds himself in Hart’s office, standing before the wooden desk as he did when he arrived here almost two months earlier. Running his hand along the edge, he scans the room: the now empty bookshelves, the flag standing tall in the corner. He had been ashamed to be sent here and resentful of Hart’s welcome, but he had been as naive as the rest of them to let himself think of the fort as someplace safe, a place that would protect them from their pasts. 

His mind drifts back to the idea of escape, to the horses in the yard. If he ran, could he be truly free? Or would he only be running towards something worse, as Hart had warned him once? But Hart hadn’t known then, couldn’t have known, what awaited them in the ephemeral figure of Colquhoun, of Ives. 

For all his words, in the end, Hart had chosen escape. His escape was a slit throat, Boyd behind him with his own knife tearing through the thin skin of his neck, blood sprayed on glass. 

Boyd looks to the window now, still stained red with blood, casting pink light onto the floor.

Unlike Hart, he had not chosen escape.

***

It’s here that Ives finds him, sitting behind the desk. Ives is quiet as he enters, closing the door behind him, as if there’s still a need to protect their privacy from curious ears. He perches on the edge of the desk, patting down his coat in search of cigar and matches, glancing coyly at Boyd.

Exhaustion gives way to hysteria as Boyd suppresses a laugh. Ives had charmed him; he had tempted, threatened and fought him, and now he sits across from him, playing shy. 

“Ives,” Boyd acknowledges. 

Ives gives up his search for his cigar, instead clasping his hands together as he regards Boyd, “Feeling better?” 

Boyd nods. 

“Not planning on killing me again anytime soon?” 

Boyd shakes his head. He had considered it, but he isn’t yet strong enough. 

“I’m leaving, Ives.” 

“Oh?” he responds.

Silence descends as they both contemplate their respective situations. Ives twists his hands together, eyes downcast, and Boyd remembers himself in nearly the same position: newly arrived at the fort, standing before Hart, awkward and afraid. He knows better than to think that Ives is afraid though– he’s only waiting for Boyd to make the next move.

Boyd is leaving. Fort Spencer beckons him, with its close walls and safe familiarity, to hide, to run, to cower. But with the General and Lindus’ death, the place will soon be overrun by forces investigating their disappearance. It would be long before this place returns to its equilibrium, built from weak men, a miserable cocoon of comfort and solitude.

Boyd no longer belongs to either of those places. One, where he is apprehended and killed for the loss of Fort Spencer’s previous inhabitants and the General; or two, waiting to die, cowardly and hungry, hiding amongst fresh recruits.

He is not sure where Ives would be. He watches him, Ives still sitting unnaturally still and his face betraying nothing.

Boyd is leaving. What he doesn’t voice though, is that he wants to leave _with_ Ives.

Their kindred hunger had connected them, at first. A conversation on a mountaintop constructed from false trust ( _you said that when you ate the man…_ ). But it was violence that had entangled them. Their last battle had confirmed this– it was a consummation of violence, a compromise between them, each man giving himself over to the other.

Boyd has fought Ives, with words or with weapons, and failed. But if he gives in now, lets Ives win, if he _waits_ , he may be able to save them both– a la Hart with the slit throat.

He refrains from saying anything yet. Something in him, something distinctly Ives-like, is curious to see what Ives’ recourse in the face of Boyd’s stoic silence will be. He stands.

“Leaving now, then?” 

A hand encircles his forearm and Boyd stills. “Let go of me.” 

“You know, Boyd, you’ll still feel it even if you run away.” Ives’ voice is sharper now, the quiet tension from before bleeding into anger. “You’ll hunger for it. Oh, I believe you can deny it for a while, but the longer you leave it, the more voracious it’ll become. It’ll consume you. Do you really think you can resist it completely? You’ve already proven that you can’t.” Ives scoffs, “Or are you planning on killing yourself, Boyd?” 

A chorus of visions arise in Boyd: Reich’s eyes, milky in death, staring contemptuously beneath Boyd as he was slowly carved away; Cleaves gargling out a laugh around a mouthful of blood as Boyd plunged a knife between his ribs; Ives’ blood coating his mouth with its sticky sweetness, trickling down his throat as they laid together; Lindus in his shock falling backwards, the snap of a bone reverberating around the shed, Boyd’s teeth at his neck, pulling hungrily at the tendons. Rising again and again in violence, the lust for life an unquenchable fire. 

When Ives speaks again, his voice is soft, “You want to live, as much as I do. Together, we could kill sparingly. We have enough meat here to last us months, if we prepare it properly. Alone, you’ll find yourself racked with hunger, and desperate to kill any man, woman or child you come across.” 

“I should kill you,” Boyd says, because it deserves to be said.

“Ah, but you said you wouldn’t,” Ives smirks.

He’s right, of course. And Boyd won’t kill him. At least, not yet.

“You know there’s no point now in resisting now, Boyd. Come, stay with me. We could–”

Boyd cuts him off, “We can’t stay here.” 

Ives’ face lights up in delight at Boyd’s acquiescence. Boyd wonders how many more arguments Ives had lined up to try and convince him to stay.

“The General’s disappearance will be noticed. It will be easier for us if we disappear too.” Ives opens his mouth and Boyd cuts him off again, clarifying, “We abandon the fort.”

Ives grins and bows his head in agreement, “Your input is greatly appreciated, Boyd. I do hope you will only continue to be as forthcoming.”

Silence descends again as Ives resumes his earlier search for a cigar and Boyd watches him and waits for another response. When he offers nothing more, Boyd continues, “We can take the horses and leave tomorrow morning.” 

“And where shall we go?” 

“The mountains.” 

Ives hums, his cigar now lit and placed delicately between his fingers, “The cave, I suppose– Not much room for three horses there, though.” He laughs and looks to Boyd, “What _is_ your plan, Captain?” 

“We’ll go to the cave,” he agrees, ignoring Ives’ other question. Noxious smoke from Ives’ cigar billows out around them and Boyd thinks of a campfire, of the smell of meat cooking, of the looming summer months and weary travellers in search of comfort. He meets Ives’ eyes and nods. 

They can survive off of the Fort Spencer corpses as Ives said. He’ll persuade him against killing anyone else, and they’ll isolate themselves in the wilderness of the Nevadas and when the meat is gone, Boyd will kill Ives. They’ll be far away from this place, far away from any sort of salvation. He’ll let himself be sated by Ives and sate him in return, allow an ease to grow between them, and then he’ll take Ives’ influence and turn it against him, spearing him with the violence he himself cultivated. 

They can escape together, where they can continue to watch one another. Ives’ excitement betrays him, though, as Boyd regards him. Chattering away about the work to be done, Ives hops down from the desk and with one last glance, leaves Boyd alone again. 

Surprised, Boyd thinks of how easy it will be to kill him now. Ives has let himself become too confident, his suspicion giving way to pride. 

He doesn’t let himself think of his own pride, his own new trust in Ives– in their partnership. He doesn’t think of his hunger. 

He thinks of Hart again. 

He and Ives will leave together.

They’ll go to the mountains. 

  
  
  
  


  
  
  



End file.
